This invention is in the field of boxing gloves as used in amateur and professional boxing matches and for training purposes. Traditionally, such gloves include an inner glove or mitt into which the boxer's hand is inserted and snugly fits whereby the glove is securely engaged to his hand and cannot twist, slide or otherwise move relative to the hand. Encompassing the inner glove is an outer shell spaced apart from the inner glove by a thickness of padding which may range from a fraction of an inch to numerous inches.
The padding is intended to be a protective cushion to prevent damage to the boxer's hand as he strikes training targets or another boxer, and to prevent damage to the boxer's opponents who are struck. The amount, type and quality of padding varies from a tiny amount in the case of bag gloves which merely protect the skin of the boxer's hand during training against punching bags, to very large, thick amounts of padding for training gloves to maximize the cushioning protection from damage, and finally to an intermediate amount of padding such that the gloves weight 8 ounces as is required in typical professional boxing matches. The composition of padding is typically polyfoam, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) closed cell and open cell layers and hair substances such as horse hair. Typically the outer shell surface layer of the glove is soft but durable leather or vinyl, and the inner glove is a very strong cotton or equivalent material.
In boxing glove construction the thumb portion has been one area of particular interest and concern because of the potential danger to the eyes of a boxer's opponent if struck by an extended thumb. Eye injuries have been among the most frequent and serious of injuries in this sport and are of great concern not only because of the temporary or permanent physical suffering, but because the livelihood of professional boxers is at stake. Prevention of injuries to boxers' thumbs is obviously also a matter of substantial concern.
Some early gloves consisted of a mass or ball of padding with a central cavity into which the user's hand was inserted and a transverse bar secured within the cavity to be gripped. Most boxing gloves provide thick padding adjacent all striking surfaces, such as the knuckles, back and side of the hand, finger tips and thumb. In all cases an objective is for the glove to be comfortable and protective, but also to be grippable so that it is snug and secure on the fist and cannot twist or slide relative to the user's hand. To allow the boxer to feel his fist and glove engagement as comfortable and natural, there must be provision for him to bend and curl his fingers and thumb to form a natural fist while simultaneously providing the massive padding as described earlier.
To achieve the above objectives most boxing gloves retained a separate thumb pocket, which while heavily padded, still allowed for significant numbers of eye injuries. A major improvement in boxing glove design in the prior art is illustrated in FIG. 7 herein, namely the provision of a large padded protrusion on the glove adjacent the fore-finger and extending toward the thumb. The cushion protrusion being closely adjacent to the thumb renders the thumb projection merely part of a larger mass, so that contact of the thumb and an opponent's face inherently involves contact of most of the large cushion mass, thus reducing the possibility of the thumb alone poking into the eye. This design feature has been so affective in reducing injuries that it has been adopted throughout the United States and the world as the standard and often required boxing glove construction in amateur and professional fights.
Despite the improvements within prior art boxing gloves, eye injuries caused by thumbs have not been eliminated. This has led to the present invention of a totally new boxing glove that is more effective in protecting both fighters, while allowing for reasonable comfort and freedom of motion of the thumb and fingers. These and other objectives will be described in connection with the disclosure of the new invention in the following paragraphs.